TY - JOUR
T1 - Hunting communities of practice
T2 - Factors behind the social differentiation of hunters in modernity
AU - von Essen, Erica
AU - van Heijgen, Eugenie
AU - Gieser, Thorsten
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Hunting is a social world in which members socially differentiate themselves into smaller social worlds on the basis of adhering to a particular method, aesthetic, or game. Such identity constitution has been understood as forming communities of practice of hunters. Importantly, these communities frequently take pride in their distinct identities and assert theirs is the ‘real’ way of hunting. In this paper, we canvass the diverse factors that make up hunter identities and examine them for patterns and meaning. Our analysis places the phenomenon of social differentiation as it currently takes place in hunting in the context of responses to modernization. On this analysis, hunter identities are found to be rooted in defensive localism, class competition over resources, gender and moral affiliation, and the protection of the social legitimacy of hunting before an increasingly critical society. Our work is at once a synthesis of recurring hunting profiles across literature and field sites in Europe and a critical analysis of the significance of hunting communities of practice in future research, including serious leisure studies, nature-based recreation, criminology and rural sociology.
AB - Hunting is a social world in which members socially differentiate themselves into smaller social worlds on the basis of adhering to a particular method, aesthetic, or game. Such identity constitution has been understood as forming communities of practice of hunters. Importantly, these communities frequently take pride in their distinct identities and assert theirs is the ‘real’ way of hunting. In this paper, we canvass the diverse factors that make up hunter identities and examine them for patterns and meaning. Our analysis places the phenomenon of social differentiation as it currently takes place in hunting in the context of responses to modernization. On this analysis, hunter identities are found to be rooted in defensive localism, class competition over resources, gender and moral affiliation, and the protection of the social legitimacy of hunting before an increasingly critical society. Our work is at once a synthesis of recurring hunting profiles across literature and field sites in Europe and a critical analysis of the significance of hunting communities of practice in future research, including serious leisure studies, nature-based recreation, criminology and rural sociology.
KW - Defensive localism
KW - Hunting
KW - Landscapes
KW - Urban outsiders
KW - Wildlife management
U2 - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.03.013
DO - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.03.013
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85063048723
SN - 0743-0167
VL - 68
SP - 13
EP - 21
JO - Journal of Rural Studies
JF - Journal of Rural Studies
ER -